ABSTRACT
Most Australians know next to nothing about the languages of the original inhabitants of the continent. In fact, misconceptions abound. Many believe – and this was frequently reinforced by what they were taught in school – that there is (or was) a single Aboriginal language, that this was a primitive language spoken by a primitive people, and that it had no grammar and at most a few hundred words, supplemented by gestures and grunts. It is also commonly thought that the sounds mimicked sounds of nature, and that there were no abstract terms such as love and hate, only words for specific material objects.
